Neurodegenerative diseases : unifying principles

Abstract

As the global population ages the impact of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are significant forces in shaping human health and quality of life in the 21st century. Insights into understanding these diseases, and knowing how to treat them are major frontiers of scientific research. Neurodegenerative Diseases: Unifying Principles is the result of a conceptual revolution over the last decade in our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases as sharing unifying features. There is an increasing appreciation of the common biological and pathological features across seemingly varied neurodegenerative diseases that entail protein misfolding dysfunction and its consequences over time. Providing an overview of this conceptual change is the main theme for the book. Conventional approach emphasize the differences among neurodegenerative disorders, here Drs. Cummings and Pillai compile the increasingly compelling evidence that these disorders share many features and that insights in one may be rapidly translated into advances in another. The goal is to accelerate understanding by showing linkages among biological, pathological, can clinical aspects of this class of diseases. This collection of 19, inter-related chapters, articulates and broadens our view of the unifying features that initiate and drive disease progression across a variety of neurodegenerative diseases over time. This book will serve as an outstanding sourcebook of insights from experts that have played key roles in this story.